Ford CEO Jim Farley has said the automaker is making an off-road “supercar for gravel”, arguing the traditional on-road supercar market is “completely over-served”.
Speaking on the Hot Pursuit podcast by news outlet Bloomberg, the Ford CEO – fresh from judging and participating at Monterey Car Week in California – said he’s asked Ford engineers to develop a wild, paradigm-shifting off-road performance model.
“No one’s ever built a supercar for gravel, high-speed sand, dirt. I think that would be a great direction for our company,” Mr Farley said.
“I’m talking about a Dakar concept – like a supercar – 1000hp [745kW], partially electric, totally digitally enabled.
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“You bring your phone, you get the [2026 Red Bull Ford Formula One driver] Max Verstappen settings; everything’s adjustable – the damping, the ride height, and it’s fully capable of doing a full-on race, but it’s not a pick-up truck.
“I’m thinking really deeply about it, and usually that turns into something,” Mr Farley said.
The Dakar event is the gruelling long-distance rally – which started as a race between Paris, France, and Dakar, Senegal in Africa, which Ford entered in 2025 hoping to challenge Toyota.
Ford races a wild prototype vehicle in the event called the Raptor T1+ after its Ranger, Bronco and F-150 Raptors.
“That’s why I want [Ford] to win Dakar … I think that is the right way for Ford to innovate the supercar business,” said Mr Farley.
It’s not the first time the Ford chief has mentioned a Raptor-related supercar, with suggestive comments after this year’s Dakar event – where Ford finished third behind two Toyotas – but this is the most detail the Ford boss has gone into so far.
While praising the revered status of the Porsche brand, notably its iconic 911 sports car lineup which includes the new, more rugged Dakar, Mr Farley said the opportunity for the US automaker isn’t to make another 911 – or even a faster Mustang.
“I feel like the supercar market is completely overserved,” the Ford boss said.
“People are just buying these cars to invest as if it’s a stock or something. I don’t want flippers; I don’t want investors buying our cars.”
For the flagship Mustang GTD, Ford has a vetting process for customers wishing to buy one of the 300 it will produce – a similar process which was applied to the GT two-seat supercar it introduced to showrooms in 2017.
“We can always do another fancy supercar, but I’m challenging my team to think differently,” Mr Farley said.
“What I’m more interested in is – there is no Porsche of off-road, and I’m shocked that people don’t think about that, and I’m very interested in that.”
Mr Farley, currently on a Bronco Off-road trip on the Colorada River in the US state of Utah, is a self-confessed petrol head and car enthusiast whose recent headlines include declaring Ford will no longer make “boring cars”.
He has also publicly criticised “two-row” SUVs – such as the top-selling Toyota RAV4, a rival to Ford’s own Escape – calling them “generic”.
In tapping his passion, Mr Farley has said the iconic American brand will look at leveraging its icons – such as Mustang, F-Series and Bronco – instead of building two-row generic SUVs.
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